Looking for Yesterday

by Marcia Muller

  A small groaning noise.

  If the car fell, would it go all the way to the underground garage, crashing on the hard concrete? How far was that? How much of an impact? Enough to seriously injure or even kill me.

  My breath felt hot and constricted in my throat and chest. My lips and hands began tingling. Little pinpoints of light flashed in my eyes. I couldn’t hyperventilate now!

  Breathe slowly, shallowly. Don’t suck air in through your mouth. In, out. In, out.

  Finally the symptoms subsided, but the breathing exercise hadn’t calmed me at all. I cursed the elevator, then the building, and then Sly Lane. When I got to Ted, I stopped. My fault. I should’ve looked into his recommendation of new quarters for the agency more thoroughly. But I’d been busy with a personal case and…

  This isn’t getting you out of here.

  After a few minutes, I shifted my weight experimentally. There was a screech of metal on metal. The cage dropped about six inches, then stopped with a clunk. My hand slipped on the railing and I fell against the back wall. And then the lights went out.

  I reached for the railing and pulled myself up an inch at a time to prevent any sudden motion from dislodging the cage. Once on my feet I held my breath and stood still. A slight creak, that was all.

  Gingerly I took out my cell phone and speed-dialed Ted. Only his machine answered. I yelled into it in case he was screening his calls, but he wasn’t. His cell didn’t answer, either. Who else could help me?

  The management company, of course. But I didn’t have its number in this phone’s address book, and its office wouldn’t be open this late on a Friday night anyway.

  Well, there was always 911.

  Yeah, sure. Given emergency services’ dismally long response time and the fact that they’d consider this a low-priority emergency, I’d probably be trapped here all night. Or worse, my continued weight would cause what must be frayed cables to break, the cage to fall. And if the media caught wind of my predicament… I could picture the humorous squib in the Chron: “Private Eye Can’t Find Way Out of Own Elevator.”

  Call Hank.

  Of course. Hank Zahn, my best friend from college, the agency’s and my personal attorney. In all those years he’d never let me down, nor I him.

  His line had buzzed once when the cage gave another lurch, throwing me to the floor. The phone, jarred loose, banged against one of the walls. I covered my head with my hands.

  “Hello,” Hank’s voice said dimly.

  I reached for the phone; it was too far away, and I didn’t want to make a move that would send the elevator plunging to garage level.

  “Hank,” I yelled.

  Silence.

  “Help! Elevator on Sly Lane.”

  The cage jolted again, and I braced for the crash, but it stayed in place.

  Had Hank heard me? Or had the cell connection been dropped? How long would that damnable thing hang there?

  Sabotage, there was no doubt in my mind: the sound that had startled me earlier as I sat at my computer; the person I’d sensed watching me in Caro’s neighborhood.

  Why? My case was no threat to anyone—

  A minor settling, and the cage tilted slightly to the right.

  To avoid another attack of hyperventilation, I took small, short breaths, but the air in the cage had gotten stuffy, and my head felt light. Where was Hank? The call must’ve been dropped.

  Another lurch, more screeching. I curled myself into a ball, arms protecting my head.

  And felt the cage plummet down…

  11:59 p.m.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Two.” I’d been down this route before.

  “What day is it?”

  “Friday, maybe Saturday by now.”

  “Your name?”

  I tried to sit up. “I know my own name, dammit!”

  Gentle but forceful hands pressed me back. “Your name, ma’am?”

  “Sharon McCone, okay? ‘Ms.’, not ‘ma’am.’”

  A familiar voice from above my head said, “She’s as belligerent as usual.” Hank’s face appeared. “Lie still and do what the paramedics tell you. You’re not injured, just shaken up.”

  “Where did I end up? On the elevator, I mean.”

  “Conveniently, the first floor. You passed out. The elevator’s shot.”

  “Good. I hate the goddamn thing! I hate this building! I hate—”

  “Calm down. They’ll be taking you to SF General to see if you have a concussion.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Necessary precaution. You’ll be released in the morning. I’ll drive you home.”

  “No more hospitals!”

  “Sssh.” He laid a cool hand on my forehead. “I know how you feel, but it’s best to let them check you out. I’ll be right there with you. Is Hy in town?”

  I shook my head; it hurt, but not much. “I don’t want to bother him with this.”

  “But he’s reachable?”

  “Through RI’s LA office. But don’t—”

  “I won’t—yet.”

  I reached up and grasped his wrist. Our years together flashed through my mind: Sitting on the stairs at parties in the house a bunch of us had shared in Berkeley, pleasantly stoned on dope and idealism. Playing poker around the big oak table in All Souls’ kitchen at the co-op’s Victorian on Bernal Heights. The time he’d been shot and I’d been so terribly afraid he would die. His wedding to Anne-Marie Altman. Their party celebrating the adoption of their daughter Habiba Hamid. Good memories, bad ones—years of them.

  “They’re ready to transport you now,” he said.

  I gripped his wrist tighter.

  “That’s okay,” he told me, peeling my fingers away. “I said I’d come with.”

  SATURDAY, JANUARY 7

  11:30 a.m.

  Hank helped me up my front steps and into my house as if I were an infirm old lady. The cats came running, then stopped, sensing something wrong.

  “I’m a little battered, that’s all,” I told them.

  “You still do that,” Hank said.

  “Do what?”

  “Talk to cats.”

  “Most of the time they’re better listeners than people.”

  He got me situated on the sofa, pulled the blue blanket around me. Fussed about placing one of the decorative pillows behind my head. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  “You know I don’t drink tea.”

  “Sorry, I forgot. Nearly everybody else I know grabs for the teapot when they’re under stress. Coffee’s your thing.”

  “Actually I’d rather have a drink.”

  “Shar, are you sure that’s a good—”

  The exasperation that I’d been holding in check boiled over. “Stop acting like a mother hen. Wine, I said. There’s an open bottle of chardonnay in the fridge. A big glass of it, please.”

  He shot me a dubious look and went into the kitchen.

  I leaned my head back, savoring the feeling of home. The cats came up on the sofa and sniffed at me, then hopped off. Hospital smells were not among their favorites. Hank returned with my wine—his definition of big gave it a whole new meaning. This glass would tide me over until midnight.

  I sipped some of it.

  “That stuff’ll put you to sleep.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You planning to call Hy?”

  “In a while.”

  “You know he’ll go ballistic and rush up here.”

  “That’s why I’m putting it off.” I paused. “Hank, I hate that building on Sly Lane. The elevator’s off-putting to the clients—and certainly now to me. I’m tired of running down stairs every time I want to speak personally to somebody. The parking situation’s okay, but that’s about it. I’ll get Ted started on finding other quarters, and then you’ll break the lease. We’ve plenty of grounds.”

  He nodded. “One phone call from me should do it. But what I find strange is that the elevator was inspected a few months befo
re you took possession.”

  “It was tampered with.”

  “Possibly.”

  “No, more than possibly.” I told him about the man I’d seen near Caro’s apartment, the sounds I’d heard.

  “But why?” he asked.

  “Maybe whoever killed her thought she’d given me some information that would lead to them. All the more reason to get my staff out of there right away.”

  Hank sat next to me, patting my hand. “When you find a new place, I’ll oversee the move.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “How many things have you done for me that you really didn’t have to?”

  “Friends.” I sighed.

  “Yeah, friends.”

  We sat silently for a moment. I sipped wine. Thought, Good God, how did this huge glass get half empty? After a while Hank went to replenish it, and when he came back I thought to ask after his adopted daughter, Habiba Hamid.

  “She’s great,” he told me. “All A’s in school, and into sports like kickboxing and karate. When she starts dating, I’ll never have to worry about her taking shit off of any boy.”

  I smiled, remembering the frightened little girl I’d rescued off a remote Caribbean island a few years ago.

  “Which one of you does she live with most of the time?” Hank and his wife, Anne-Marie Altman, had an interesting living arrangement: he was what he liked to call a “casual housekeeper”; she was what she admitted to being a “fascist homemaker.” Once this had posed a problem, but now they owned a building with two flats, and each lived in a different one—with ample visiting privileges. Habiba alternated, depending on her mood.

  Hank said, “She’s into neat these days. Anne-Marie’s teaching her to weave. But the kid’s getting bored with it, so I suspect I’ll be seeing more of her soon.”

  “What a great life she has.” Was that my voice, slurring the words? “I’ve been meaning to ask you about her birthday…” I smiled again and put my head against his chest. “Dammit, Zahn, you drugged me.”

  “No, you drugged yourself with a little help from me. You could do with a few hours of sleep.”

  6:20 p.m.

  “I’m coming back up there inmediatamente.”

  I smiled. Hy fluently spoke three languages besides English—Spanish, German, and Russian—and sometimes lapsed into one or another, depending upon which he’d recently been using. I assumed he’d been dealing with Hispanics over the course of the day.

  “There’s no need for that,” I said. “But I want to ask you a question: that extra office space you have? Could the agency move into it until we find other quarters?” RI had purchased a small office building south of Market on Fremont Street when Hy moved its world headquarters north from La Jolla.

  “Of course. You can move into it permanently; you know how I feel.”

  “Thanks. I’ll keep the option open. Right now all I care about is protecting my staff. Tomorrow I’ll ask as many of them as are available to go over to Sly Lane and collect computers and whatever else they need. I assume they can get access, since RI is a twenty-four-hour operation.”

  “I’ll tell my people to expect them. Where will you be?”

  “Off to the Wine Country.”

  SUNDAY, JANUARY 8

  11:10 a.m.

  The Alexander Valley, northeast of the quaint town of Healdsburg, is beautiful countryside: vineyards, old stone wineries, aggressively modern wineries, low oak-and-madrone-covered hills, and higher hills covered with pines. On a good day it’s a delight. Unfortunately on this rainy Sunday in January it was gray and depressing.

  For my purposes the gloom was perfect. There was little traffic on the two-lane highway, and there’d be few visitors at the tasting rooms. I drove slowly, squinting through the rain-spattered windshield, until I saw the sign for Walden Vineyards. It showed a peaceful pond, buildings misty in the background. As I drove along the graveled driveway, the actual pond materialized.

  Walden Vineyards, Walden Pond. Had this pond been there initially, or had it been created for bucolic effect?

  The winery itself was one of the splashy, modern sort—lots of wood and tile and clerestory windows and skylights. I parked beside the only vehicle in the lot—a mud-splattered blue pickup truck.

  Inside, light gleamed down on a terrazzo floor from dozens of tiny spots mounted on the high beams of the ceiling. A copper-covered bar fronted a wall of wine racks. The customary souvenirs and gift items with winery logos—T-shirts, openers, fancy corks, glasses, cookbooks—were displayed on tables around the perimeter. Above them the walls were hung with landscapes and abstract paintings, all for sale. Local artists, I thought. Some quite good and all with a hefty price tag, I suspected.

  A raven-haired woman behind the bar looked up as I came in. She was wearing a stunning purple-and-gold cape that swirled around her slender body.

  “Our first visitor today!” she exclaimed. “I was getting downright lonesome here. Are you planning to taste?”

  “Sounds good,” I told her and consulted their wine list. “Chardonnay, please.” I watched while she expertly uncorked a bottle, poured a dollop into an oversized glass, and recited the usual spiel: “Sand Hill Chardonnay 2000, from the vineyards directly behind the winery. Light but not sweet, with a hint of grapefruit.”

  Before I tasted it, I set my credentials on the counter.

  She studied them and her eyebrows rose. Then she extended her hand. “Kayla Walden, co-owner. I’ve never met a private investigator before. I assume you’re here for something other than wine.”

  I sipped the chardonnay. Damned if I couldn’t taste the grapefruit.

  I complimented her on the wine and her cape.

  “I collect capes, all kinds. They hide an infinite number of body flaws. But you’re not here to talk about fashion.”

  “No. You’re acquainted with a woman named Carolyn Warrick?” I asked.

  Her gaze shifted, just a fraction. “No. Should I be?”

  “Your name—and your husband’s—was mentioned in a newspaper article about her.” I took a copy of the clipping from my bag and indicated the part that I’d earlier highlighted.

  After a moment she said, “Well, they got the part about us owning the winery right. But I don’t recall—”

  A door behind the bar opened and a tall man came through carrying a case of wine. “More of the oh-eight zin,” he said. “Not that we’ll need it on such a dismal day.”

  “My husband, Dave,” Kayla Walden said to me. “Dave, this is Sharon McCone, a private investigator from the city. Our names are mentioned in this newspaper article, but I’ve never heard of the woman or the case.”

  Dave Walden set down the wine and took the sheet from her hand. After scanning it, he handed it back to me and said, “Beats me. Dave Walden’s a common enough name. Maybe they got their facts wrong.”

  A subtle tension was building between the two of them now. They didn’t look at each other, and their body language had changed. I stuffed the paper into my bag, finished the wine in my glass. “Probably. I understand you make outstanding zins.”

  “Coming right up,” Dave Walden said—too heartily. “But since you like chardonnay, try our Estate Reserve first.”

  11:50 a.m.

  I spent another twenty minutes at the winery, chatting up the Waldens. They were both personable and forthcoming about the winemaking process. When I asked, “Where do you source your fruit?”—an insider’s expression that I’d picked up from a friend who worked the tasting bar at Monticello in the Napa Valley—they told me the grapes came from Hewette Vineyards, a little to the west on the highway. But every time I steered the conversation to my surprise at the Chron’s erroneous mention of them in connection with the Warrick trial, they insisted the facts must have been skewed and turned to other topics. They had me half believing them—but only half—when I left.

  At the end of the driveway I noticed a delivery tube for the SF Chronicle. If the Waldens read it—an
d you could be sure they would, given the high price for delivery this far from the city—they would’ve seen the where-are-they-now piece. I’d suspected as much: their innocent glaze had been flawed.

  I paused there for an oncoming string of cars, thinking over our conversation. When traffic cleared, I turned west toward Hewette Vineyards.

  12:05 p.m.

  Russ Hewette was a sharp-eyed man with a shock of white hair, probably in his seventies. His redwood home sprawled over a hillside above the terraced vineyards. When I told him I was a friend of the Waldens, he led me into one of those modular, glass-covered rooms that people add onto their houses when they run out of space, where he insisted on serving me a glass of Walden Zinfandel 2001.

  “Those’re great kids,” he said, gesturing toward the Walden winery. “I’ve known them since they bought the old Godden place, six, maybe seven years ago. All the Goddens are gone now, unless you count Jethro Weatherford, a shirttail cousin who lives on a quarter acre that was deeded to him by Gene Godden some twenty years ago.”

  “Where is that quarter acre?”

  “Down the highway a ways, in a grove of gum trees. Worthless land, but Jethro seems happy there. He’s kind of simple, has a drinking problem, hangs out at the Jimtown Store. They tolerate him, I think, because he’s local color.”

  “About the Waldens—they’ve been here seven years?”

  “Well, sure. But they’re your friends; you ought to know that.”

  “We’ve been out of touch, and this was a short visit, so we didn’t get to catch up completely.”

  “From the city, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t go there much any more. It’s changed, parking’s terrible, and now they’re putting in those new meters that you’ve got to be a genius to operate. You like it there?”

  “Yes, yes I do.” In spite of its numerous faults, San Francisco was home.

  “Well, you’re young. The city’s for the young or the rich. Or the flat-out poor.” He held his glass up to the light, admiring the wine’s color. “So why did Dave and Kayla ask you to drop in on me?”